Your home page is the most critical part of your website, because most of the time, it’s the only one people will see. That means you need to make the most of it, to entice people to keep clicking through to learn more about your business and what you offer. Here are the keys to a stellar homepage.
Pay Attention to Your Layout – User Experience is Everything
Everything needs to be easy to find, and make sense. Your payout includes your navigation, calls to action, email marketing sign-ups, and so on. If your visitors cannot find what they’re looking for, then they will move onto other sources that make it easier for them to find what they need.
Make Sure You Answer All Your Visitor’s Main Questions
When someone visits your website, you must assume it is always their first time, and they know absolutely nothing about your business and what you do. Your copy needs to be well-written and to the point, but must cover the following areas:
● Who are you?
● What do you do?
● Is your product or service for them? Quickly and concisely describe your product or service so people can decide whether they want to invest more of the time (or their money) into what you have to offer.
Keep it Responsive
The majority of people don’t use computers to access the internet anymore. Instead, they rely on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to access their favorite websites. By making sure you use a responsive design, your site will automatically adjust to their screen size, so they get the best possible user experience regardless of whether they are using a computer, smartphone, or tablet. Responsive design is an automatic feature of many WordPress themes and can be coded into any website design.
Keep it Lean, so it Loads Fast
These days, few people remember what it was like to sit and wait for a phone modem to connect to the internet, and wait for websites to load. You’ve only got about two seconds before people will become impatient and leave. This means taking steps to ensure the code stays lean, images are optimized, so they load quickly, but still maintain quality, using a content delivery network (CDN) to keep the content coming to your users from the closest possible server, using code minifiers to reduce file sizes, and more. If you have questions or concerns about how to ensure your website loads as quickly as possible, our web design team can help you.
Use Split-Testing
If you’re not sure which design elements work to foster conversions, which set of copy or calls to actions will give you more conversions, you can use split-testing to serve one set of options to some of your visitors and other alternatives to your other visitors. Then, you’ll be able to see which versions work better for your audience. As long as you test one element at a time, you could in theory gradually build the “perfect” homepage for your website, optimizing every aspect specifically to your audience.
Ultimately, no matter what you’re selling or promoting, and no matter who you’re selling or promoting it too, getting these critical areas addressed will ensure you’re on the right track. Yes, your copy will matter, but the bigger picture is essential, too.
